Judge loses office after pitching for reality show gig

San Diego County Superior Court Judge DeAnn Salcido apparently ran a colorful courtroom and had hopes of becoming a judge on a reality TV show. Whether she become a TV judge remains to be seen, but she is no longer a real judge.

Salcido resigned Wednesday (11/10) in a deal cut as the state Commission on Judicial Performance issued a report citing 39 instances of misconduct on the bench. The judge received a public censure and agreed not to seek or hold any judicial office in California.

The first count of the report stated that Salcido had the husband of her bailiff videotape her on the bench in January 2009 as she presided over a number of cases. “She did so to promote herself for a role in a potential television entertainment program featuring a judge. She provided the January 26 tape to an entertainment lawyer, who showed it to a production coordinator for existing television shows featuring judges,” the report stated.

Apparently the unidentified TV production company was interested. The report says the production coordinator came to Salcido’s courtroom and filmed her for an entire day on May 1, 2009. An email that the judge sent to the TV rep was quoted as saying that she would line up her “most interesting cases” for the May 1st filming.

The report took issue with numerous flip remarks that Salcido made from the bench, including numerous uses of the word “screwed.” At one point, when a defendant tested positive for marijuana use, she asked the courtroom audience, “Can I get a woo, woo, woo?”

“While I voluntarily accepted the consequences described in my agreement with the Commission, the truth is that humor and less formality in certain courtroom contexts can be very effective. While I understand that some of my comments from the bench were not favorably viewed by certain observers, the intention behind my less traditional style was to connect with the offenders, the victims, and others in the courtroom, to help effectuate positive change for the community,” Salcido said in a statement as she resigned from the bench.

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Salcido was appointed to the bench in 2002 by Governor Gray Davis and won re-election to a six-year term just five months ago.

Now we wait to see if she’ll be back in a judicial robe on television.